Worcester board: No permit for controversial billboard plan near lake
The board voted 5-0 against approving the permit, which would have allowed a billboard to be erected at 5 Norton Drive. The billboard would have overlooked Interstate 190, according to the project's renderings.
The application for the permit was submitted by Kenjoh Outdoor Advertising, an advertising company with many billboards throughout the United States, according to its website.
The proposal for the billboard in Worcester received opposition from many of the city's residents and politicians, who argued the billboard's LED lights would cause light pollution, hurting the wildlife in the area. Opponents also argued the billboard and its lights could distract drivers traveling on I-190.
During Monday night's meeting, several members of the public spoke out against the plan.
'Just because a special permit can be issued, doesn't mean it should be,' said Steven Rothschild, a Worcester resident who lives on the lake. 'This is a complete aberration.'
'We don't need another billboard,' said Worcester resident Diane Fratoni. 'I hope that you don't approve this sign.'
Representing Kenjoh Outdoor Advertising at Monday night's meeting was Attorney Mark A. Borenstein, who works for the law firm Prince Lobel Tye LLP.
During the presentation, Borenstein showed photos of Indian Lake from various locations, such as Holden and Proctor streets. He told the board that residents in these areas would not see the sign.
'It is a significant distance from across the lake,' Borenstein said. 'You're not going to see the sign from many of these houses adjacent to the lake and inland.'
Borenstein also said the billboard presents an opportunity for public agencies, governmental agencies or non-profits to have visible signage. He also said the sign could be used for Amber Alerts.
'Certainly if a parent is concerned about a particular issue, it would be very fortunate to have that as an option,' Borenstein said.
Nevertheless, the board chose not to approve the permit, with members acknowledging the public's disdain for the proposal.
'I do think the public has spoken out pretty clear against it,' said Jordan Berg Powers, the chair of the board. 'When I talked to people, there wasn't anyone I talked to that felt that this was a good use of the property.'
Man shot, killed in Worcester; suspect in custody
Worcester man sentenced for hitting Warwick police chief with car
Worcester City Council approves nearly $1 billion operating budget
Read the original article on MassLive.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
10 hours ago
- The Hill
Democrats pick fight over how GOP's SNAP change hits states
Republicans are defending recent legislation aimed at incentivizing states to fight erroneous payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — but Democrats are picking a fight over a last-minute change they argue encourages states to have higher error rates. Legislation passed out of the GOP-led Congress on Thursday that could see some states pay a share of benefit costs for SNAP, also known as the food stamps program, for the first time. The federal government currently covers the cost of benefits, but under the plan that's been tossed around by congressional Republicans over the past few months, some states would have to cover anywhere between 5 percent and 15 percent of the benefits costs if they have a payment error rate above 6 percent — which factors in over-and-underpayments. However, changes were made to the text that allowed delayed implementation for the cost-share requirements for states with the highest error rates shortly before its passage in the Senate this week. GOP leadership sought to lock down support from Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, whose state had the highest payment error rate in the country in fiscal year 2024. Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said Republicans made the change to comply with chamber rules. 'You have to give those states time to adjust because about all they're going to do is get down to that midrange, and then they're still going to have to pay a penalty because they're so high,' he said. 'So, it's about giving states a fair chance to adjust.' Under the plan that was greenlit by Congress on Thursday, some states would begin contributing a share of benefit costs in fiscal year 2028, depending on their payment error rate. But the plan also allows for delayed implementation for two years for states with payment error rates if they reach around 13.34 percent or higher — an effort Republicans say is aimed at providing states like Alaska with much higher rates to bring them down. Hoeven said the GOP-led agriculture committee, which crafted the SNAP pitch, 'came up with a lot of proposals' trying to comply with restrictive rules governing a special process that Republicans used to approve the plan in the upper chamber without Democratic support. Under the rules, Hoeven said, 'they always said you got to give states time to adjust in order to meet the test.' Republicans say the overall proposal is aimed at incentivizing states to reduce erroneous payments. But Democrats have sharply criticized the plan, arguing it would encourage states with higher error rates to continue making erroneous payments. 'The most absurd example of the hypocrisy of the Republican bill: they have now proposed delaying SNAP cuts FOR TWO YEARS ONLY FOR STATES with the highest error rates just to bury their help for Alaska: AK, DC, FL, GA, MD, MA, NJ, NM, NY, OR. They are rewarding errors,' Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, wrote this week as she sounded off in a series of posts on X over the plan. In another swipe at the plan, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) wrote on X that he had to text his state's governor that 10 states with 'the MOST ERRORS in administering the program' are 'exempt from food assistance cuts,' at that Hawaii is not exempt because the governor has done 'good work in reducing the error rate by 15 percent.' The comments come as Democrats and advocates have argued the measure could lead to states having to cut benefits because of the shift in cost burden. Recent figures unveiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed Alaska's payment error rate hit 24.66 percent in fiscal year 2024. The national average was 10.93 percent. Murkowski said after the vote that she didn't 'like' the bill but sought to 'to take care of Alaska's interests.' But she also said she knew 'that, in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill.' 'I don't like the fact that we moved through an artificial deadline, an artificial timeline to produce something, to meet a deadline, rather than to actually try to produce the best bill for the country,' she said. 'But when I saw the direction that this is going, you can either say, 'I don't like it and not try to help my state,' or you can roll up your sleeves.' Republicans also criticized Democrats for challenging a previous GOP-crafted SNAP provision that sought to provide more targeted help to Alaska, as GOP leadership sought to win Murkowski's support for the bill, which ultimately passed the Senate in a tie-breaking vote. However, Democrats opposed previously proposed waivers for the noncontiguous states of Alaska and Hawaii, decrying 'special treatment.' In remarks on Wednesday, House Agriculture Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) the Senate 'had to add something to get to address that challenge that Alaska has.' 'The goal is, from a functionality perspective, they need to get their error rate down as soon as possible, because when the time comes, and they have to start to pay, they don't want to be that high error rate that you're coming in now,' he said. 'In most states, Alaska would be a challenge, I think, but most states have been under 6 percent at one time in past years,' he said. However, he also wasn't 'crazy about' work requirements exemptions for some Indigenous populations in the Senate's version of Trump's megabill that didn't appear in the House bill, as Republicans seek to tighten work requirements. 'It's what the Senate had to do,' he said, though he noted that 'economic conditions are challenging on those sovereign lands and in high unemployment, high poverty.' It's unclear whether the carve-outs were the result of talks Alaska senators had with GOP leadership around SNAP in the days leading up to the Senate passage. The Hill has reached out to their offices for comment. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development said Alaska has 'one of the largest indigenous populations in the nation,' with Alaska Natives representing 17 percent of the state in 2010. At the same time, the Senate bill nixed temporary exemptions that had been preserved in the House bill for former foster youth, homeless individuals and veterans. Despite being preserved in the House plan, Thompson criticized the carve-outs, which were secured as part of a previous bipartisan deal in 2023. 'It cheats all those individuals from having access to that to us funding their SNAP Employment and career and technical education, because the whole goal here is to raise these people out of poverty if they're struggling in poverty, because that's how you qualify for SNAP,' he said. 'And the fact is, they were made ineligible for the really great benefits.' Other proposals in the party's SNAP plan seek to limit the federal government's ability to increase monthly benefits in the future, changes to work requirements and include a chunk of farm provisions. The plan comes as Republicans sought to find ways to generate north of $1 trillion in savings of federal dollars over the next decade as part of a major package that also advances President Trump's tax agenda, which is estimated to add trillions of dollars to the nation's deficits. Republicans say the proposed spending reductions, which are achieved also through changes to programs like Medicaid, are aimed at rooting out 'waste, fraud and abuse' in the federal government. But preliminary research released this week by the Urban Institute found that just the SNAP changes could affect about 22 million families, who researchers said could be at risk of 'losing some or all of their SNAP benefits' under the plan. Asked if last-minute changes to the plan to help other states and not his bothered him, Sen. Jim Justice ( who ultimately voted for the plan, told reporters this week, 'Yes and no.' 'But at the same time, I think they probably had more severe need and so I think it'll be fine,' Justice, a former governor, said Tuesday. 'If it's like any business deal that I've ever seen in my life, you know, the parties of a good business deal walk away after they get something done, and they walk away, and they're probably holding their nose a little bit, and they're probably regretting certain things and saying, 'Doggone, we didn't do good on this and that and everything,' That's a good deal.'
USA Today
11 hours ago
- USA Today
Budget bill includes $10B payday for states that spent on border security
Tucked into the budget reconciliation bill is a Texas-sized golden nugget: $13.5 billion that could pay back what the state spent on border security during the Biden administration. The bill – which passed Congress on July 3 – doesn't mention Texas by name. But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lobbied hard for the line item's inclusion, and the state's Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn fought for the reimbursement. "Under Operation Lone Star, Texas allocated more than $11 billion of Texas taxpayer money for border security, and earlier this year I requested Congress reimburse Texas for these costs in full," Abbott said in a May statement, after an initial version of the bill passed in the House of Representatives. The new "State Border Border Security Reinforcement Fund" earmarks $10 billion for grants to states that paid for border barriers or other security measures beginning Jan. 20, 2021 – President Joe Biden's inauguration day. Notably, during the Biden administration, no other state spent more than Texas on border security measures. Under Operation Lone Star, the state deployed thousands of Texas National Guard troops to the border, placed controversial buoy barriers in the Rio Grande and paid to bus more than 100,000 migrants to Democrat-led cities around the country. Abbott was one of Biden's leading critics on the border during a period when the Border Patrol was registering more than 2 million migrant encounters a year – many of them lawful asylum-seekers. The "reinforcement" provision "just says 'states can apply.' But what states incurred expenses? Texas and Arizona," said Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight for the Washington Office on Latin America. Early during the Biden administration, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, sought to build a makeshift border barrier out of old shipping containers. But legal challenges forced his administration to remove the barrier, and his Democratic successor, Gov. Katie Hobbs, had previously asked the Biden administration to reimburse the state for border security funding totaling $513 million. The budget reconciliation bill includes an additional $3.5 billion under a fund whose acronym spells BIDEN: "Bridging Immigration-related Deficits Experienced Nationwide." That money can be disbursed to states that aid the federal government in its immigration crackdown. In an emailed response to questions, Abbott Press Secretary Andrew Mahaleris declined to say how much money Texas will apply for but told USA TODAY the governor "will continue to work closely with the Trump administration to secure the border. "
New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
Bettors sound alarm over $1.1B tax hike in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill: ‘This will kill professional gambling'
Gamblers sounded the alarm over a new provision in President Donald Trump's recently passed spending bill that imposes a $1.1 billion tax increase by limiting the deductibility of gambling losses. The change, buried in the Senate GOP's version of the sweeping 'Big Beautiful Bill,' will cut their net winnings and potentially charge income tax when they break even or lose money, according to Bloomberg. Under current law, gamblers are allowed to deduct 100% of their losses, up to the amount of their gambling winnings. But the final version of the legislation — set to be signed by Trump during a White House ceremony Friday — modifies that rule. Advertisement 4 A provision tucked into President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill will raise taxes on winnings earned from gambling. AP Beginning in 2026, only 90% of losses will be deductible, meaning some gamblers could owe taxes even when they break even or incur a net loss. 'I've spoken to many clients and they're very concerned,' Zachary Zimbile, an accountant with experience in gambling regulations, told Bloomberg. 'If you add a 10% penalty, it's going to eat into a lot of their profit.' Advertisement Examples included in the legislation show the potential consequences. Under the current system, a gambler who wins $100,000 and loses $100,000 would report zero taxable income. Under the new rule, that same gambler would owe taxes on $10,000. Similarly, someone who wins $500,000 and loses $500,000 — breaking even — would owe taxes of $50,000. Even in cases where losses exceed winnings, taxes would still be owed. Advertisement A gambler who wins $200,000 and loses $210,000 would owe taxes on $11,000, because the deduction for losses would be capped at $180,000. 4 The GOP-led House of Representatives approved a final version of the spending bill on Thursday. AFP via Getty Images The change sparked significant pushback from gamblers, particularly professionals who regularly handle large volumes of both wins and losses. Phil Galfond, a professional poker player who has racked up nearly $3 million in live tournament winnings, wrote on X: 'You would make $200,000 during the year, [but] you would pay tax as if you made $700,000.' Advertisement Rufus Peabody, a professional sports bettor, highlighted the impact of the new tax provision on social media, explaining that it 'hits the losers too.' 'Someone can lose money gambling, and still owe taxes on it,' Peabody wrote on X. Doug Polk, who has won more than $10 million in live poker tournaments, wrote that the gambling provision 'will kill professional gambling. This will negatively impact THOUSANDS.' 4 President Trump is expected to sign the bill into law on Friday. Getty Images 'If you care about poker now is the time to get this out to every single corner of the internet,' Polk wrote on his X account. 'This has been snuck into the bill and if it passes tens of thousands of people will instantly lose their careers.' While professional gamblers are likely to feel the brunt of the new rule due to the scale of their activity, amateurs with high-volume play could also be affected in years when they have significant wins and losses. The US gambling industry has seen substantial growth in recent years, boosted by the expansion of online platforms and the popularity of regulated betting services. Companies such as FanDuel and DraftKings have helped drive the surge. Advertisement According to the American Gaming Association, commercial gaming revenue in the US reached nearly $72 billion in 2024, marking the fourth consecutive record-breaking year. 4 The new legislation will limit deductions for gambling losses to 90% of winnings, starting in the 2026 tax year. Studio Romantic – 'We commend congressional leaders on the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' the American Gaming Association said in a statement provided to The Post. 'Our industry's ability to sustain quality jobs and deliver economic benefits is significantly enhanced by the tax policies of OBBBA that support consumers, encourage business innovation and investment, and strengthen US competitiveness.' Advertisement The AGA said that 'we look forward to President Trump's expected signing and will work closely with Congress in the coming months to address the changes to wagering deduction losses and further modernize the tax code.' The Post has sought comment from the White House and DraftKings. A spokesperson for FanDuel declined to comment.
